Coming a day after the new coalition government announced its first budgetary cuts – by DFID from development awareness projects – the mood at the Cyfanfyd AGM reflected concern and a degree of apprehension as to what the future might hold. The day had been designed with a clear focus on the future of ESDGC / development education in Wales and the UK but the news that 5 development awareness projects had been cut and the new Global Learning Engagement Fund had been suspended cast doubt over any future activity. Representatives of formal and informal learning and voluntary sector organisations gathered at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff to hear guest speakers’ views on developments.
Dr Doug Bourn, Director of the Development Education Research Centre at London University’s Institute of Education spoke on the topic ‘Towards a new Pedagogy for Development Education’ he referred to the UK as an example of good practice with, until now, one of the best funding systems for development education and spoke of the challenges that faced the development education community in taking work forward. In Wales policy now existed that recognised ESDGC but this now needs to be implemented with real understanding of the ethos behind the policy being developed. There is a clear need to understand the concepts of interdependence and interconnectedness but to approach these with a critical eye when considering our own attitudes and assumptions. There is a need to look behind the rhetoric and to place development education within learning and education; to recognise uncertainty and develop strategies for global learning; to consider whether there is a predetermined goal or outcome from development education or whether we need to challenge injustice and inequality by equipping learners to understand the connections between who they are and what they are experiencing locally and the bigger global picture. There will always be struggles and challenges and it is the role of the development education community to recognise and adapt to these, to continue to challenge dominant orthodoxies and to try to represent all perspectives and opinions allowing learners to make critical and informed judgements and react appropriately to them.
There was a brief question and answer session following Dr Bourn’s talk then Nathan Cook, Policy Officer at the Welsh Assembly Government’s Community Cohesion Unit addressed the group on ‘Community Cohesion and ESDGC’. WAG has recently launched ‘Getting On Together’, it’s strategy for community cohesion. This is based in the ‘One Wales, One Planet’ commitment to achieve a ‘fair and just society in Wales’ and the awareness that since 9/11 and 7/7 there has been a growth of discrimination and disengagement within Welsh society which was emphasised by the racial disturbances at Caia Park in Wrexham in 2003. WAG has consulted on how people feel about the communities they live in and has prioritised areas where action can be taken to promote ‘community cohesion’. The new strategy focuses on five areas including learning, communication, social inclusion and preventing violent extremism. There are links to be made with Wales’ commitment to sustainable development – ‘enhancing the economic, social and environmental well being of people’ – and to global citizenship with its awareness of the world, diversity and justice. The community cohesion fund is focused on culture and integration, ESOL, hate crime and the PREVENT agenda and links with the RE and PSE curricula in schools have been made explicit. A toolkit is being developed to support educators in this field. There was feedback about the need for support and for increased ESOL provision and Nathan Cook asked for any further comments to be sent to Steve Bowden who was currently on secondment to the community cohesion unit working on this.
After lunch Liz Thomas and Hanna Miyir spoke briefly about Cyfanfyd’s DFID funded project Southern Voices: Welsh Choices and launched the Directory of BME and minority faith organisations working in ESDGC in Wales. This is very much a ‘work in progress’ and is a summary of the baseline research that Hanna has been involved in during this first year of the project.
The final speaker of the day was Scott Sinclair, Manager of the ESDGC Schools Network who spoke about ‘Developing the ESDGC Schools Network’. Reflecting on the earlier talks Scott offered the positive view that development education / ESDGC activities will continue regardless of funding, we have much to learn and much to build on … he gave a brief overview of the development of the ESDGC Schools Network which has grown out of the Enabling Effective Support (EES) initiative that had been running for 5 years throughout the UK. In Wales WAG has been involved in EES and in the formation of the ESDGC Schools Network although at the moment the project is very short term and its future beyond September 2010 is unsure. The network needs to look to its future development, thinking about how to improve quality, what strategies will help schools to lead on this, what is the role of the development education community? There is an intention to work in partnership and to focus on synergies between organisations, schools and young people and to develop appropriate, innovative and effective practice to really embed ESDGC in schools and the wider communities. There was a discussion focused on the practicalities of engaging young people; how to embed work in schools; how to cross the sectors – what possibilities for inter-generational work? – how to empower schools, teachers and students to take this work forward. We need to recognise that there is considerable potential in schools (and the wider educational fields) and that is the role of the voluntary sector to recognise this and to look for ways to develop, change, adapt and respond to it.
All three talks and the launch of the Directory were well received. There followed the formal part of the day with the Cyfanfyd AGM accepting minutes, financial statements and approving appointments to the Executive Committee. There was hope that the political climate would allow for this work to continue and participants recognised that there might be a need to take action in the near future to lobby government (both WAG and UK) to ensure the future and security of this essential area of work.